Not that St Paul requires all Christian speech to be grave and serious. Many a true word is spoken in jest; and "grace" may be "given to the hearers" by words clothed in the grace of a genial fancy and playful wit, as well as in the direct enforcement of solemn themes. It is the mere talk, whether frivolous or pompous--spoken from the pulpit or the easy chair--the incontinence of tongue, the flux of senseless, graceless, unprofitable utterance that St Paul desires to arrest: "let it not proceed out of your mouth." Such speech must not "escape the fence of the teeth." It is an oppression to every serious listener; it is an injury to the utterer himself. Above all, it "grieves the Holy Spirit."
The witness of the Holy Spirit is the seal of God's possession in us;[129] it is the assurance to ourselves that we are His sons in Christ and heirs of life eternal. From the day it is affixed to the heart, this seal need never be broken nor the witness withheld, "until the day of redemption." Dwelling within the Church as the guard of its communion, and loving us with the love of God, the Spirit of grace is hurt and grieved by foolish words coming from lips that He has sanctified. As Israel in its ancient rebellions "vexed His Holy Spirit" (Isai. lxiii. 10), so do those who burden Christian fellowship and who enervate their own inward life by speech without worth and purpose. As His fire is quenched by distrust (1 Thess. v. 19), so His love is vexed by folly. His witness grows faint and silent; the soul loses its joyous assurance, its sense of the peace of God. When our inward life thus declines, the cause lies not unfrequently in our own heedless speech. Or we have listened willingly and without reproof to "words that may do hurt," words of foolish jesting or idle gossip, of mischief and backbiting. The Spirit of truth retires affronted from His desecrated temple, not to return until the iniquity of the lips is purged and the wilful tongue bends to the yoke of Christ. Let us grieve before the Holy Spirit, that He be not grieved with us for such offences. Let us pray evermore: "Set a watch, O Jehovah, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips."
5. In his previous reproofs the apostle has glanced in various ways at love as the remedy of our moral disorders and defects. Falsehood, anger, theft, misuse of the tongue involve disregard of the welfare of others; if they do not spring from positive ill-will, they foster and aggravate it. It is now time to deal directly with this evil that assumes so many forms, the most various of our sins and companion to every other: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and railing be put away from you, with all malice."
The last of these terms is the most typical. _Malice_ is badness of disposition, the aptness to envy and hatred, which apart from any special occasion is always ready to break out in bitterness and wrath. _Bitterness_ is malice sharpened to a point and directed against the exasperating object. _Wrath_ and _anger_ are synonymous, the former being the passionate outburst of resentment in rage, the latter the settled indignation of the aggrieved soul: this passion was put under restraint already in verses 26, 27. _Clamour_ and _railing_ give audible expression to these and their kindred tempers. Clamour is the loud self-assertion of the angry man, who will make every one hear his grievance; while the railer carries the war of the tongue into his enemy's camp, and vents his displeasure in abuse and insult.
These sins of speech were rife in heathen society; and there were some amongst Paul's readers, doubtless, who found it hard to forgo their indulgence. Especially difficult was this when Christians suffered all manner of evil from their heathen neighbours and former friends; it cost a severe struggle to be silent and "keep the mouth as with a bridle" under fierce and malicious taunts. Never to return evil for evil and railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing,--this was one of the lessons most difficult to flesh and blood.